no title

AFGHANISTAN TALKS

Taliban offer softer approach in talks

Troops that the U.S. Defense Department identified in the past week as having died in foreign
countries:

AFGHANISTAN

• Marine Sgt. Michael J. Guillory, 28, Pearl River, La.

• Army Sgt. 1st Class Kevin E. Lipari, 39, Baldwin, N.Y.

• Army Staff Sgt. Nicholas J. Reid, 26, Rochester, N.Y.

• Army Staff Sgt. Nelson D. Trent, 37, Austin, Texas

Includes combat and noncombat military deaths:

• In Afghanistan, 2,092 have died since military operations began Oct. 7, 2001.

Note: The toll includes deaths in Afghanistan, Pakistan or other countries during Operation
Enduring Freedom. The toll also includes those who died from their wounds after returning to the
United States or Germany.

Get Email Updates

The Dispatch E-Edition

All current subscribers have full access to Digital D, which includes the E-Edition and
unlimited premium content on Dispatch.com, BuckeyeXtra.com, BlueJacketsXtra.com and
DispatchPolitics.com.
Subscribe
today!

By Matthew Rosenberg &Taimoor ShahTHE NEW YORK TIMES • Sunday December 23, 2012 8:08 AM

KABUL, Afghanistan — After years of deriding Afghanistan’s government and army as corrupt tools
of Western occupiers, the Taliban have begun publicly airing a softer vision for the country’s
future, with senior insurgent leaders saying the militants are willing to govern alongside other
Afghan factions.

That message was delivered during the past few days by Taliban envoys during private meetings
with Afghan officials and opposition politicians near Paris, say officials close to the talks. The
softer approach has been echoed in recent interviews with Taliban figures loyal to the group’s
nominal leader, Mullah Omar.

Together, it is the furthest that the Taliban’s senior leadership has gone to express in some
official way that the group would be willing to operate as a mainstream Afghan political faction
rather than aiming to return as conquering rulers after the end of the NATO combat mission in
2014.

But with the Taliban there are always questions.

The group is increasingly divided by power struggles, say some Western officials and Afghans
close to the Taliban, and there has sometimes seemed to be a disconnect between conciliatory
statements from the top and the aggression of field commanders. As well, Afghan and U.S. officials
trying to open peace talks with the Taliban have long struggled with the question of whether any
offer of compromise could be seen as legitimate or just tactical maneuvering to gain public
support.

Still, the new statements offer the tantalizing prospect of a Taliban leadership that is ready
to talk, even if many of its aims are out of line with the Afghan government and its Western
allies.

That willingness might be in part because of a still-unfolding feud at the group’s top levels,
recent interviews with a senior Taliban commander and another Afghan man close to the group
indicate. Those two men, speaking on condition of anonymity, say that the Taliban’s hard-line
military commander, Mullah Abdul Quyyum Zakir, is being pushed aside in favor of more-moderate
rivals.